Indiana Is Trying To Kill Me And Other Fun Facts

It’s the second worst winter on record for “the Hoosier state”. But don’t worry, there’s a chance we can still Be Number One! Because Winter ain’t over my friends. I write this as muscles I didn’t know existed ache from my first major shoveling experience.

So 1st lesson learned upon arriving: Leave 15 minutes earlier. Because that’s how long it’ll take you to scrape piles and piles and piles AND piles of snow off your car. Also, you may need to shovel the driveway. Also, you will walk then drive extremely slowly. Nevermind…leave 30 minutes earlier.

Lesson 2: Turn on the defrost windshield thingy in your car and let it run for 10 minutes (while you’re sweeping/shoveling snow). This will save you the painful effort of trying to scrape ice off your windshield, which does not work anyway because you end up trying to drive thru what looks like a child’s scribble drawing. I know this first-hand.

Lesson 3: Clearing the snow off your windshield is useless if you don’t remove the two feet of snow on your hood as well. Lesson learned. The hard way.

Lesson 4: Clear the snow off your headlights. I had to be told to do this. Twice. (so far)

Lesson 5: You can – in fact – drive with a completely obscured rear windshield. This is for the times when you look at your car in the morning and say *$%@# it.

Lesson 6: When you are given salt, do not apply directly to snow. First shovel, THEN salt the walkway/driveway/planet. This salt is supposed to stop the snow from getting icy or do something vaguely anti-snowy.

I now firmly believe that if someone offered to magically move the entire city of Indianapolis to Florida, 97% of the people would agree. The other 3% are descendants of sadomasochistic polar bears.

If – for a moment – you think Indiana is NOT trying to kill you, look up at the ice knives over your door. They go by the deceptively cute name of “icicles”.

Thanks to Indiana, I’ve learned I can survive -6 mornings, which has the odd after-effect of making 25 degrees feel balmy. I actually started to sweat in my coat the other day. It was 36 degrees.

But just when you think you’ve got this whole winter thing down, you wake up mid-February to non-stop snow that has now covered everything you’d so arduously shoveled away, your 5-minute commute becomes 20 minutes, and you confirm that, yes, Indiana IS trying to kill you. And you find yourself yelling at no one in particular about the weather while sweeping more snow off of your car but NOT the rear windshield in a dangerous symbol of defiance. It’s my mockingjay. [Hunger Games reference, which is appropriate because they – like me – are fighting for survival.]

And then – when you dare think you’ve overcome every winter scenario – it sleets. And you are driving and scraping ice off your side rear view mirror at the same time. And the icicles you knocked down off your eave grow back 4 times larger and will kill a bear.

Then one morning, it’s suddenly 40-something degrees. And the ice rink on your car’s floorboards melts. And you see patches of grass emerging thru the melted snow. And a neighbor starts to rake leaves in your yard. And you talk to him – because Hoosiers are friendly folk – about the good weather. And the nice Hoosier fellow ominously says “Enjoy while it’s here. Because it’s Indiana…” And that’s when I know that he knows that Indiana is trying to kill me.